During the first half of this century, when the steam locomotives of the East Broad Top railroad were chugging through the Aughwick Valley, the south-western Pennsylvania town of Mount Union was a nationally recognized center of industry. The train ran 30 miles from Robertsdale north to Mount Union, hauling the semibituminous coal mined from Broad Top mountain, and ganister, the local quartzite that made the region famous for its silica bricks.